


Breaking the Habit

by emiv



Category: Dark Knight (2008), Dark Knight Rises (2012)
Genre: Gen, slight AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-02
Updated: 2014-07-02
Packaged: 2018-02-06 11:27:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1856395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emiv/pseuds/emiv
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It takes more than one night to break a habit like his. Bruce, between <i>The Dark Knight</i> and <i>The Dark Knight Rises</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Breaking the Habit

In the aftermath of the Joker—after Harvey, _after Rachel_ —Bruce stays in at night. It’s a tactical move. With the police actively hunting him, with so many eyes looking for him, every night spent out as the Batman is a night Bruce could be caught or shot. Each night is a risk of being taken out of the game.

He’s no good to Gotham dead. Or locked in Arkham.

He decides to lay low. To let the dust settle before he continues his work.

It’s less than a week before the dreams start up again. Old, familiar nightmares of wells and bats. Gunshots. Screams. Tiny red rivers of his parent’s blood, running between the cracks in the cobblestones.

There are new dreams now, mixed with the old. Poor perfect Harvey Dent and his mutilated face. Rachel, reduced to ash and air. Gordon dead. Gotham on fire.

Bruce wakes with the overwhelming urge to break everything in sight.

After waking one night too many with his mother’s screams echoing in his ears, with his father’s body at his feet and Rachel’s dying face before his eyes, Bruce gets up and gets dressed. He leaves the penthouse, heads to the bunker and suits up.

First it’s one night.

Then it’s two.

Before long, Batman is back patrolling the streets on a nightly basis.

“Do take care, Master Wayne,” is all Alfred says. His eyes say more, full of worry. Disapproval. Bruce ignores it. He pushes away the guilt, stores it with the rest.

As the weeks pass, he finds himself avoiding Alfred more and more.

Once that might have bothered him. Now it’s just one more thing to add to the list.

  


* * *

  


Bruce doesn’t waste time strategizing these days. There’s no meticulous research, no careful plans. No set mission. Not anymore. He simply goes out and does what he does best. Over and over again.

This is what he needs. This is his distraction.

It’s different now than it was before. Everyone is scared of him, not just the criminals and the corrupt. The whole city thinks he’s a killer and they act accordingly.

It is not as bad as Bruce thought, seeming the villain. People stay out of his way. That’s fine by him.

The greater the distance, the less the collateral damage.

That’s what the people closest to him all become, eventually. His parents. Rachel. Harvey. Gordon. Collateral damage. Even Gotham; his very presence had given rise to a new breed of criminals to ravage her streets. New men, more clever and cunning than the average mob boss or the petty thief. Erratic, unpredictable and dangerous.

Like him.

Another unintended consequence of his actions, another tragedy for which he is to blame. But his anger still outweighs his guilt; it burns him from the inside. It’s the fire that keeps him moving, keeps him fighting. Keeps him numb.

The days grow colder. He works harder, fights harder. Each night, he stays out a little later, lets the Batman take over a little longer. His only focus is the next fight. The next case. The next problem to be solved.

The problems he _can_ solve. 

There are no shortage of problems in Gotham. There are always answers to be found, plenty of criminal scum to be brought to justice.

He starts with the Narrows and works his way out.

As the weeks bleed into months, Bruce becomes more careless. Just a little. Just enough. He wanders rooftops and alleys, looking for a fight like a man possessed. He doesn’t use his gadgets half the time, stays away from the smoke and the theatrics. Some nights, he just wants to make it even. His body against theirs, his will against theirs. One on one. One on five. One on twenty.

He finds low-level smuggling rackets to break up, interferes with petty robberies and shuts down gambling rings.

It’s child’s play.

He throws himself in the middle of gang wars, in between large groups of color-coded men with guns and switch blades.

_Red rover, red rover, send Batman right over._

He fights them off until he’s the only one left standing. These are the hard fights, the ones that leave him out of breath, battered and bruised. He craves them, seeks them, needs them.

When there are none of these to be had, the Batman goes hunting. He finds the lowlifes and the criminals in their hovels, sniffs them out.

_Close your eyes. Count to ten._

They hide. He seeks.

Most nights, they cower. Or run. But on the good nights, Bruce comes across the ones itching for a fight.

_You want some?_ He cracks his knuckles. _Bring it._

He pours everything he has into each punch, every swing. All the anger, all the grief, all the misery he can’t push away finds an outlet at the ends of his fists.

Some nights, he has to remember to stop, to hold back. Some nights, he has to remind himself not to go too far.

Gotham’s hospitals see an upswing in patients in traction, in broken noses and concussions.

With each night that passes, his careful control, that famed restraint, feels like a leash wound tight around his neck, making it hard to breath.

  


* * *

  


Months pass. Commissioner Gordon and the newly-passed Dent Act begin to make their desired impact on the crime scene in Gotham, depriving Batman of problems to solve. Of people to correct.

Of things to _fix_. 

Clean streets. Criminals behind bars. Stricter regulations. No loopholes. No parole. This is what he wanted. This is what he sacrificed his reputation for. He should be grateful.

He isn’t.

Criminal activity in the city starts to drop and the nights begin to slow. Bruce finds himself scanning police frequencies, showing up right where he knows the boys in blue will be. He makes an appearance, lets them catch a glimpse. Nothing solid, nothing confirmable. Just a shadow, but it’s enough. He makes them chase him.

_Tag, you're it._

He looks over his city from rooftops, hidden in the dark among beasts carved of stone. He stares out at the GCPD building, it’s blue light glowing in the distance.

_Come and get me,_ he dares. _Hunt me._

_Keep me running. Don’t let me rest._

_Don’t let me think._

He drives himself to exhaustion and beyond, wills himself to numbness.

His carelessness does not go unnoticed.

“Keep this up and you’re going to get yourself killed,” Gordon warns him one night, a cup of coffee in hand, standing beside their rusting signal. Bruce is almost touched.

_I know,_ he replies, fading into the darkness.

Gordon’s warning echoes Alfred’s, but Bruce ignores them both and keeps going. His bones ache, his muscle scream, but he keeps going until he can barely stand. He feels his body breaking underneath him, but he pushes until there is nothing left. No more strength in his bones, no more fight in his body. Tendons snap, cartilage wears out.

His body fails him first. His will, his soul, takes longer to break.

The will always does.

One night, Batman returns to his cave under the newly rebuilt Wayne Manor and doesn’t come out again.

  


* * *

  


Once Bruce takes off the cowl, the dreams return. He doesn’t try to hold them back anymore. He can’t fight them, so he lets them come, takes them in.

This is what he deserves.

This is the price of his failures.

He never saved anyone. Not really. Not when it counted.

Not his parents. Not Rachel. Not Harvey.

But Gordon will. Their lie will clean the streets; it will keep the worst of the city at bay. Because the ghost of Harvey Dent can do more than the Batman. Because sometimes a lie is stronger than the truth. Because the people can’t be trusted.

One year turns into two, then three.

  


* * *

  


When his knee gives out, when his body won’t let him be Batman anymore, he pretends to be Bruce Wayne instead. He spends years attempting to turn the worthless playboy into something more purposeful than a pretty mask with a gold card. Something more useful than a distraction.

He nearly succeeds, until he realizes the energy project he’s poured his time and his resources and his frustrated energy into could be turned into a weapon.

It's too dangerous to exist.

Just like him.

He sabotages the project, halts the funding, lets the wells run dry.

Now it’s Bruce Wayne’s turn to disappear.

The hell with it all. He’s had enough. He craves the peace he knows he’ll never have.

He settles for solitude instead.

  


* * *

  


Three years turn into four. 

The dreams that haunt him have become old friends now. Reliable in their horror. Consistent in their pain. They age him more than a hundred nights as Batman. He lets himself grow old with them. He revels in their company.

Four years drift to five, then six.

Seven.

Eight.

His city goes on without him. The streets are clean, but the victory is hollow.

Every night, his failures flash before his eyes. Every night, there are wells and bats. Gunshots. Screams. Tiny red rivers. Ash and air.

This is what he deserves.

 


End file.
